As we know, people always rely on others' reviews. Nowadays, this principle also works in marketing. We are talking about affiliate marketing — the mechanism by which companies can obtain profits from the indirect selling of a commodity to another client. The company will, therefore, obtain another advertising outlet, and intermediaries will split the profits. To get this commission, the company can offer an affiliate program and the partners can join it.
Affiliate marketing over time can bring passive income, the path to it is time-consuming and takes from a few months to several years to set up the entire system to work without you. And even if it works for a while without you, it does not mean that in today's fast-changing world, this system will work for you indefinitely. You will need to work on this regularly and keep improving the system.
The Principles of Affiliate Marketing
There should be at least two companies, which come into play. We are talking about companies and intermediaries. In practice, however, two other items need to be considered for successful partner campaigns.
Here is the list:
- Companies or Advertisers. These are the companies and private individuals who offer their products online.
- Intermediaries or publishers. They pass other companies' products through their marketing channels. These can be companies, as well as individuals or influencers who affect the target group of the company. They contact the clients, using the marketing tools, and try to convince the potential customers to buy the products. This way the companies will get a commission.
- Partner network or system. There should be a system that can correctly identify and match a referral visit to a website with a specific purchase through a referral partner link.
There are two possible solutions for this point: the company can create its affiliate program or join an existing partner network that has its own sales matching system. when a company has such a system, anyone can join their affiliate program and get a commission from it.
Here are some successful examples of affiliate marketing. Look at MoneySuperMarket website: it is just a cornucopia of partner cooperations. Scrolling down, you can find a huge amount of different products, including insurance, smartphones, and travel services.
Likewise, the perfect example of the influencer is Kim Kardashian. She is creating sponsored posts that allow her followers to take advantage of special deals with her merchant partners.
Clients
It comes without saying, that clients play the leading role in the marketing process. Whether it is a company or an intermediary, both must be familiar with the clients’ intentions, have an analyzed market and, above all, must offer what is in demand.
Technical component
Since affiliate marketing works online, each broker leads visitors to the company's website using a specific partner link.
Subsequently, each referral visit is registered in the partner system using a cookie, and the system sets its validity period, usually 30 days. During this time, if a user purchases a business page using a cookie, the broker will be charged a commission on sales.
16% of all orders made online can be attributed to the impact of affiliate marketing.
Affiliate Marketing Channels
Basically, several different marketing channels may leverage. First thing, which comes to mind in 2020 — influencers and bloggers. They already have an impressive audience, consequently, this cooperation can be beneficial. Another channel is paid search focus microsites. By giving a specific audience more oriented, relevant content, microsites contribute to increased conversions due to their clear and straightforward call to action. Large media websites can also be beneficial, while due to such partnership, the conversion rates will improve significantly, resulting in a top-notch revenue for both the seller and the affiliate.
Which Verticals are Trending in 2022
It’s all romantic! Dating as CPA vertical will continue to be successful — people try to find some easy ways to find love. Some tips here: dating SmartLink is suitable for beginners in arbitration because they can focus on tests without wasting time on optimization. Moreover, if you deal with dating verticals, you will face a large number of offers, but they require more effort, experience, and time. Traffic sources — instant messaging, Push notifications, banners, etc. Also dating campaigns bring fast results, so they are easier to analyze and optimize.
For example, the affiliate program Match is the most popular dating site in the US. It receives more than 30 million visits per month and operates in 18 countries. The system has a very generous referral duration of 120 days and motivates a 50 percent fee.
Another very famous US dating site is eHarmony. This is much smaller with just around 4 million visits a month. It's all available in Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom, in addition to the United States.
EliteSingles is a dating website targeted at trained professionals seeking a long-term partner.
The affiliate system of EliteSingles can be found on more affiliate networks but the primary one is CJ Affiliate.
We will show you the test case. For the first 3 days, it was launched on all sources to check traffic. Bid: $0.025. conversions were tracked in via RedTrack and on RichPush.
After a 3-day test, 7 varieties showed the best results. During the test, the IP pool was added to the blacklist so that it was not possible to catch extra clicks.
After a week the status transformed.
Here is current eCPM on the most popular GEO.
Another choice is E-commerce. This sphere is developing as never before because now you can buy almost anything online: various goods and services, content, financial offers, and so on. Here are some reasons why do you need to opt for this niche: the product/service is paid immediately; you can be sure in the product you advertise (products are certified). And it is possible to connect such giant services as eBay, Amazon, Aliexpress.
The successful examples of E-commerce affiliate programs are The Home Depot affiliate program, Amazon Associates, Zappos, eBay.
The Home Depot affiliate program is one of the most demanded, not so much for commissions as for the quality and variety of its stock. They pay only a fee of 3 percent per transaction. Their associates, however, respect the brand's reputation and the consistency of their catalog.
Amazon Associates is the best for many people. Jeff Bezos' company is not just one of the most visited websites on the internet (his search engine, after Google and YouTube, is one of the three most used on the internet). He has a nice partner system too.
Many affiliate traders chose to bet on Amazon's affiliate system because of its price, confidence, and transparency.
Zappos is also very popular Although their 7% commissions are not as high as Amazon or eBay. And eBay e-commerce platform is the most attractive for affiliate merchants. How come? Because its commissions reach 50% and 70% per transaction, a percentage that far exceeds that of other affiliate programs.
Another cool idea is to invest in the info business. It is said, the best investments are investments in knowledge. This is why the trend of self-learning and self-development as a person is still very popular among people of all ages.
The info business niche includes various workshops, courses, and master classes. The fact that the courses provide guarantees for admission to a prestigious university or for getting a high-paying job also fuels interest in it. The important fact is that this vertical is white and there is a wide range of offers.
How to Be a Successful Affiliate Marketer
Here are some tips for becoming a successful affiliate marketer:
- Choose your vertical. You need to establish yourself as an expert in one specific area and find your audience. That is better than promoting a large array of products to everyone, without understanding, who will buy the product.
- Make it personal. People will believe in your product if you personally choose it. Make sure, that the company focus on truly valuable goods and consumers will enjoy it.
- Use different sources. Don’t focus just on social media, for instance. Use email campaigns, personal blogs, cross-channel promotions, banners, personal reviews, create some step-by-step tutorials, etc.
- Don’t forget about the trends. Always make sure that you remain on top of any emerging trends to keep yourself competitive. In fact, you'll probably be able to benefit from at least a couple of the latest marketing strategies that are being constantly developed.
- Promote products from many merchants. If you only endorse the goods of one retailer, you will be stuck with their fees, their landing pages, and eventually their conversion levels. Working in your niche with several different merchants, and promoting a wide range of items, is vital. Likewise, you should check the reputation of every partner.
- Keep testing and optimizing your conversion rates. Optimize your landing page, test your call-to-action, have a conversion rate optimization strategy.
Is it vital to choose the right vertical?
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Conclusion
Affiliate marketing isn't as easy as it looks at first glance, but the payoff is worth the effort and time when you're doing it right. Work on improving your business relationships, learn something new every day, be an expert in your field, concentrate on innovative advertising strategies, and success will surely come.
